


Teach Your Children Well

by Silvergirl



Series: Drawn to Stars [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A grown-up wedding, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon compliant only through TLD, Established Relationship, Fandom Trumps Hate 2020, Happy Ending, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Old unhappy far-off things will bite you in the butt, POV John, TFP never happened, can requited love last?, mutual misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:55:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23754202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvergirl/pseuds/Silvergirl
Summary: John decides to send Rosie to the local school a year early. Sherlock assumes he doesn’t want her becoming solitary, hyper-intellectual, hyper-focused—in other words, like Sherlock. It doesn’t help that Rosie’s prospective teacher is a dead ringer for Nicole Kidman, and is making overtures to John by text. But both fathers are wide of the mark: well, there’s always something, right?
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Drawn to Stars [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585843
Comments: 247
Kudos: 257
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2020





	1. The fears that your elders grew by

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Loda5697](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loda5697/gifts).



> This fic can certainly be read without knowing _Drawn to Stars_ , but it will resonate much more for those who have read it.
> 
> Thank you, Loda5697, for winning me in the Fandom Trumps Hate charity auction. I loved writing your plot bunny—I had been missing our _Drawn to Stars_ boys, and you let me meet up with them again farther down the road.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That particular evening started off with Rosie whispering in Sherlock’s ear at the table, her little blonde head bright against his curly black hair. She looked at me and then back at him with a conspiratorial glint that was unsettling. And I thought of quite a few recent examples of that same scenario. If she hadn’t been whispering in French it might not have felt so ... sinister. 

**February 14–April 8, 2019**

It wasn’t until Rosie turned four that I started to notice her, well, exceptional talents. While most parents think their children are exceptional, I’d been doing the opposite: taking for granted abilities that, when you put them all together, really were a bit startling for her age.

For example, she used words that kids three times her age wouldn’t know. That wasn’t unusual in itself; only children, especially those who spend most of their time with adults, often have a rich vocabulary. And Sherlock, who spent a bit more time with her than I, never simplified his speech patterns for her. Certainly never _ever_ used baby talk: “Do you want her to grow up an idiot, John?”

Too, at a certain point I realized that she was better than good on the little electronic keyboard he’d bought her. She often used her little pink earphones when she practised on it, and if I gave that any thought at all it was to be grateful to be spared the cacophony of a new skill and new pieces. Sherlock was teaching her, and he said they weren’t ready to spring anything on me yet, but they were actually practising a duet for piano and violin.

What four-year-old plays duets, anyway? With a demanding adult? Maybe lots of them do. It wasn’t a thing, in my family growing up. “Music boosts brain development, John, there’s _research_. _Data_.”

So she talked like a novelist and was practising music with Sherlock (whose instrument I _could_ hear, and he wasn’t having to stop every four notes, or actually hardly ever). That wasn’t what started the alarm bells. No, that happened when I realised that Rosie spoke French.

French. Not just a word here and there, either. Full sentences, in an accent that sounded pretty damned French to me, back and forth with Sherlock in the kitchen as they were making biscuits. She never used a word of English in that conversation. You’d think a kid would have to ask for a translation now and again, but she never seemed to falter. Hell, I didn’t understand a single word they were saying besides “Ba.” Oh, and once, “Papa,” which she definitely didn’t call me in English.

I didn’t mention it that day, because I knew what Sherlock would say: “A second language also enhances cognitive development, John. It’s basic brain science.”

And it might be indeed, but it was getting ... unnerving. She’d just turned four, yet she was doing all this weirdly precocious stuff. So I thought about it, watched a little more closely. Took a step back and considered her schedule, her tastes, her activities and companions. Companion.

Rosie had gone to daycare until she was three, then hit a patch where she took against it. Didn’t want to go. Wailed when we dressed her to leave, howled when we dropped her off, rocketed out the door into our arms when we picked her up. Whatever was going on—a phase in her development, or something wrong at the daycare that she couldn’t express to us—it wasn’t worth making her miserable, I thought, and Sherlock agreed.

We talked about different care options. A live-in nanny or au pair struck me as awkward, and Sherlock as “unacceptable.” We didn’t want a virtual stranger in our 221B space, and we valued our privacy for all kinds of reasons. It was hard enough navigating around an increasingly perceptive three-year-old in organising our love life, for example, though Rosie’s nap time remained a precious fixed point in it. We didn’t need another adult to manage.

Sherlock’s work schedule was no longer so erratic as it used to be, because he put Rosie’s needs first. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when he said, “We’re overlooking the obvious solution. We’ll keep her home. With me, when I’m not on a case.”

I pressed my lips together, trying not to frown. It was a generous offer, after all. “That doesn’t seem sustainable to me, love. Or fair. You gave me back my profession as a surgeon, and I’m to repay you by taking away yours as a consulting detective?”

With the full armoury of eye-rolls and rhetorical manipulation and fast-talking, out-maneuvering, unassailable “ _logic, John_ ,” he got me to at least give it a try. He would scale back casework for a time, taking on Rosie for the mornings she used to spend at daycare plus the afternoons I was operating; and I would take the rest of the shifts, as I mentally called them.

He seemed strangely enthusiastic, cupping my face in his hands and kissing me the way he did when I’d done something really good instead of something I was afraid was somehow exploitative. 

He hired an on-call au pair for her, who only came when Sherlock had to work; always the same person, a university student from Liverpool whose parents were from Algeria. (Sherlock only told me much later how many people he had interviewed to find one whom both he and Rosie approved of equally.)

My own part time work at the orthopaedic hospital left me two, sometimes three free days a week, and somehow things mostly worked out. And when they didn’t, of course, there was reliable backup among Rosie’s team of admirers. In a pinch we sometimes left her with Mrs Hudson, though we tried not to abuse her willing good nature.

So the interim solution became our normal. What had happened, without my really realising it, was that Sherlock had morphed into Rosie’s primary caretaker, companion, and teacher. And she was benefiting from this, as I was, but it was hardly fair on him. He was indeed taking far fewer cases than he used to, and the man whose greatest horror had been boredom was now overseeing the education and well-being of a little kid. A darling child he loved as his own, as _our_ own, but still. My own mum had gone mad for less.

And in a way, it wasn’t entirely fair on Rosie either. After leaving daycare she’d settled quickly, didn’t seem to have any residual trauma; she was a “get over it and be happy” kind of child. But if she didn’t start having more contact with kids her age, she would shoot right past them developmentally—and have a pretty hard time integrating with them when she started her compulsory schooling at age six.

The first day of March I came home to find Rosie sitting on Sherlock’s lap, reading to him. Reading _to him_ , not the reverse. That’s when I decided to look into the local primary school, check out their Reception year curriculum and facilities, maybe make a visit, meet some members of staff. See if Rosie could start in the fall, though she’d be only four and a half. As advanced as she was, surely that wouldn’t be a problem.

In retrospect it should have been a red flag that I didn’t bring this up with Sherlock. I told myself that he would feel obliged to resist, that he might not realise himself how much the Rosie regimen was weighing him down. I just started exploring our local options on the internet, checking out the practicalities, where Rosie needed to be to start Reception year in the fall.

Turned out she was, as I’d suspected, far ahead of that baseline.

So I contacted the headmistress of Rosedale School (who makes up these names, anyway? Not a rose or a dale anywhere near the place) and asked to meet with her. It was a few streets south of 221B, well into the genteel-ish area that always annoys Harry when she comes. She likes to play up our very different upbringing, hers and mine, from Sherlock’s; but he’s on to her now, never rises to the bait. They’re finally on good terms, after all.

Dr Rossiter was an energetic, cordial, welcoming woman of forty or so. She put me at ease immediately on the subject of starting Rosie six months early, confirming that only children were usually capable of doing so because of being saturated with adult contact. She didn’t have time that day to give me a full visit of the school and show me a Reception year class—“ _board meeting_ ,” she said wearily, “emphasis on the _bored_ ”—but she invited me to come for an Open Day the following Monday.

That sounded good. Sherlock would be in on it and it wouldn’t seem quite so much of a committed decision if we were two among many parents checking the place out.

* * * * *

**6 March 2019**

I got home around seven and Sherlock and Rosie were holding dinner for me. He and I tended to eat earlier nowadays, and we unfailingly got Rosie to bed by 8:15 or so, to have our evenings.

That particular evening didn’t actually go that well. It started with Rosie whispering in Sherlock’s ear at the table, her little blonde head bright against his curly black hair. She looked at me and then back at him with a conspiratorial glint that was unsettling. And I thought of quite a few recent examples of that same scenario. If she hadn’t been whispering in French it might not have felt so ... sinister. 

Anyway, we got the pirate princess into bed, tucked up and drowsy, and went downstairs. I broached the subject with Sherlock over a nightcap. Our chairs in front of the fire, a mellow red wine, our feet tangled up the way we always do.

“I’ve been meaning to bring something up, love: do you have bandwidth right now, or are you preoccupied with something?”

He gave me that sharp-focused stare that means I do indeed have his full attention. Raised his eyebrow. Waited.

“I’ve been thinking that it might be good for Rosie to start school in the fall, you know, Reception, instead of waiting as we’d meant to until first year when she’s five and a half.” I found myself rushing a bit, an invariable tell for nerves. _Slow down, Watson._

He didn’t say anything, just raised both eyebrows, which was Sherlock for “go on.”

“I think she needs time with other kids. She’s got well out in front of the percentile for her age, and, well, it’d be good to have her more acclimated to where the other kids are before putting her in school with them.” I was trying not to make her developmental precociousness sound like a disadvantage, as indeed it wasn’t.

Sherlock still wasn’t talking, and I decided to wait a couple of minutes until some actual words came.

“We had decided, had we not, that she would start out with first year, not Reception. Fall of 2020, not this fall.” A review, not an objection. So far, so good.

“Well, last time we talked about it at all, we figured she’d be ready for school next fall. She’d had that bad patch when she turned three, and didn’t want to be in daycare at all. We never figured out whether that was because of the kids, or the place, or if it was a fluke or a phase or what.”

“Has something happened to change your mind?” Of course he would ask that straight off, how had I imagined he wouldn’t?

“No, not really. Just—the only kids Rosie sees are toddlers, Sarah and Julian’s twins. Not that often, even. Or kids at the park. She doesn’t have a lot of experience interacting with a peer group. And throwing her into first year after _another_ year of hardly ever playing with children her age, might be a bit of a shock for her.”

He wasn’t saying anything, but he didn’t need to. I could feel the powerful wall of resistance thrumming like a force field around him. I went on. “There’s you, too. The Work. Another year of short commons might not be the best thing for you professionally, or personally.”

Yeah, that failed miserably. “Surely that’s for me to decide?” He was sounding not just resistant but annoyed.

“Yes, of course, but I wanted to at least give you an opening to bring it up.”

Another longish silence. “I thought we’d got quite good at being candid with each other, at not letting things build and fester. Are you under the impression I’ve been chafing?”

I could hear him trying to keep his voice neutral.

“No, indeed. If anything, you’ve been so serene I started to worry you were resigned to relinquishing your work, at least as it used to be.” Did that sound condescending?

That did sound condescending. “Our work _as it used to be_ wasn’t sustainable for a couple with a toddler, John. Between our work _as it used to be_ and raising Watson with you, there was no question at all which I preferred. Which I prefer.” 

He drew his feet back under his own chair and that was a clear signal I was bollocksing this up magisterially.

“Listen, love. Let’s go together to take a look at the local primary school. There’s an Open Day on Monday. We’ll go without Rosie, just check things out, maybe see a class and meet a couple of staff. I’ve got a few names of Reception teachers.”

If anything he looked even more affronted. “You’ve been researching this for how long, now? Without even mentioning it?”

Now I was getting irritated as well. “ _Researching_ is a big word for idly poking at an idea, Sherlock. Come on, climb down off your high horse. Let’s go see the school” (no way I was going to admit I’d seen it already, he’d certainly overreact) “and see what we both think.”

His face had gone impassive, which was never a good sign, but he wasn’t refusing, either. Truth to tell I was bewildered why he was resistant at all. Why wasn’t he happy at the prospect of reclaiming some of his freedom, his time? What was I missing?

* * * * *

**11 March 2019**

In the event we missed most of the Open Day for a case, and only got to the school at three when the formal activities were concluded. I wondered if that had been deliberate. Once it would have been very like Sherlock to mastermind an unacknowledged sabotage, but not in recent years. Not since we’ve been together. Well, really for longer than that.

Sami had texted him that he could stay on until six, and had a plan to teach Rosie to make an Algerian hummus. I nudged Sherlock’s elbow. “What could possibly go wrong, eh?”

He was again in a restrained strop. “You may not have noticed, John, but Rosie is the sous-chef for a great deal of what we eat on the days you’re operating. And no, _of course_ she doesn’t touch anything sharper than measuring cups and wooden spoons. But she’s careful and accurate in the kitchen.”

Ah, fantastic. A precocious cook, then, too. Time we got this girl into a proper school before she ended up with her own Youtube channel.

I didn’t know what to expect of an Open Day, but we got to Rosedale so late that there were no children left on the premises. The rooms had been divided up into years, and we went to one of the Reception classrooms to see a short presentation and then meet the staff who had set up at different tables. Each table had information on a few of their initiatives and procedures for early childhood education.

Sherlock collected a small library of brochures and curricular materials (I knew he would read every word). He didn’t engage particularly with most of the teaching staff, until he met one sixty-year-old woman with whom he struck up a conversation. Hoping not to jinx the interaction, I went to talk with another teacher with a wide, warm smile and a quite startling resemblance to Nicole Kidman.

Well, I never could resist Nicole Kidman, could I. Her lookalike was even called Nicola. She admitted I wasn’t the first person to tell her she was Kidman’s astral twin. We talked about Rosie’s case; I told her Rosie’s mother was dead, and that she was a very advanced little girl for her age, and that I bet she heard that from all the parents.

Nicola was smiling even more warmly now, and said she loved it when parents were supportive of their kids, and proud of them. It gave children such a head start in life, she said. It was sad when they only got real affirmation at school, it made them imprint too much on their teachers. She _adored_ parents who lavished love on their children.

It seemed a gushy thing to say, but I had exactly zero adult experience with primary school teachers, and perhaps this was part of making parents eager to send their kids there. It was certainly a very different style from Doctor Rossiter, whom I was relieved not to see that afternoon lest she mention my visit the week prior.

The event was winding down without my having gathered much more about the school than I had from the headmistress—beyond the sense that music, at least, was a regular part of the curriculum. That boded well. I said goodbye to Nicola, caught Sherlock’s eye, and met him in the corridor to walk home.

He wasn’t very loquacious, and I thought I should let him make the first overture. Perhaps he wanted to pore over his kilo of new reading matter first. We had an hour before Sami had to leave, so I whisked him into a coffee shop for some time alone and a hot drink. Technically it was almost spring, but in London that meant less than nothing. We settled in at a small round table with a decided list to it.

“What did you think?” Sherlock was direct, if short.

“It looked like a good fit to me. On the human level, that is. Good facilities, more green space than I expected. Lots of play-to-learn activities, like music. Small enough classes, and focus on developing the whole child, not just the skills bit. What did you think?”

As I expected, he wasn’t ready to say yea or nay.

“The senior teacher I spoke with was quite impressive. Had a solid background in the research and practice around early childhood education, had read much of what literature I know. She gave me some good additional resources, too. Yours?”

Was I imagining the slight sardonic tone? It wasn’t overt enough to call him on, so I just said, “She seemed very enthusiastic about everything Rosie’s already learned. Said that children with involved parents have a strong advantage in school. Showed me some things from the music program, not that I could evaluate them, really.”

He nodded and changed the subject back to the case that had detained us all day. Something was niggling at him and he wanted to talk it through so he could capture whatever anomaly was eluding him. I listened and asked questions until it was time to go home to Rosie. Who had, indeed, helped to engineer an absolutely brilliant hummus. Sherlock made Sami talk him through the recipe.Things seemed to be on an even keel. 

Just after dinner I was contacted by the school, or at least, by the teacher I’d been talking with.

_— John, hi, it’s Nikki._

_— Who is this? JW_

_— Nikki Muller, from the Rosedale School_

_— Oh right. What can I do for you? JW_

_— I thought we might have coffee?_

_— To discuss Rosie’s schooling? JW_

_— Among other things._

_— What other things? JW_

_— I’d like to get to know you a bit._

_— You do this with all the parents? JW_

_— Just the ones I feel a connection to._

_— A connection? JW_

_— I liked you, and I got the sense you liked me too._

_— I do like you. JW_

_— So can we get that coffee?_

_— You’re very persistent. JW_

_— You have no idea._

_— I’m beginning to. JW_

_— Good._

This was just increasingly weird, and uncomfortable. I didn’t answer, as it was time to put Rosie to bed and Sherlock was deep in his reception-year readings.

When I came back downstairs he was looking positively thunderous. Must’ve seen something in the curriculum he found moronic, or insulting, or both. He pointedly didn’t look at me and my heart sank a bit, thinking of the uncomfortable conversation undoubtedly ahead of me. 

Which put me in mind of the uncomfortable conversation in progress on my phone. I picked it up and checked the text string. Yes, there were new messages.

_— Did I say something wrong?_

_— John?_

_— Are you there?_

_— I’m back. But we won’t be having coffee. JW_

_— I’m disappointed. Why not?_

_— It isn’t appropriate. You might be Rosie’s teacher in the fall. JW_

_— All the more reason to get to know each other._

_— No. In fact. You’ve a professional conflict of interest, and I’m involved. Committed. To Rosie’s other father. JW_

_— Oh. Well, no harm in asking. You don’t wear a ring._

_— I do, actually. Though it’s none of your business. And even if I weren’t involved, it’s inappropriate. JW_

_— I’m sorry. Won’t happen again._

_— Excellent. JW_

Well, that was satisfying. Once I’d have found this overture gratifying, flattering. Not anymore, and especially not right now, when my home life had suddenly become suffused with a tension I hadn’t experienced in _years_. Sherlock had all my attention, and the last thing I needed was a fishing expedition from someone who, come to think of it, must have got my number from the school form. I doubted she’d like it if a nurse from her doctor’s office pulled her mobile number from her medical records and texted her with a similar proposition.

In the event Sherlock didn’t seem to want to discuss his reading. Or to talk. Or to look at me. When he did look up, he wasn’t there. At all. He’d retreated behind a thin but impenetrable film of ice. Subtle, but unmistakable.

I put my hand on his shoulder, leaned down to kiss him. “I’m for bed, love. Are you sleepy?”

He looked the opposite of sleepy. In the years since we’d come back to 221B together we had never got this tangled up in unspoken anger and hurt (and where had that even _come_ from, anyway?), and I didn’t know how to cope with it.

His voice entirely hollow, he just said, “I’ll be along.”

* * * * *

**8 April 2019**

And that was it, for a month. A whole month of Sherlock being absent to me. Polite, distant. Sleeping in our bed, sure, but—I couldn’t even credit it— _wearing pyjamas_. He hadn’t worn pyjamas in bed for as long as we’d been a couple. It was as though he couldn’t even stand to touch my skin. Not only that. He was working a great deal more, as though he didn’t want to be in the house with either Rosie or me. And he wasn't working those cases with me.

I was torn between wanting to shake him out of this robotic coldness and wanting to respect whatever he was thinking through, wanting to wait until he was ready to talk. And there was a craven part of me that was avoiding bringing the issue to a head, uneasy about what he would actually say.

Finally I decided we couldn’t live in this stalemate anymore: him like an ice sculpture, me like a great bloody coward waiting for it to melt. Exactly four weeks after that Monday visit to the Rosedale School I put our girl to bed for the night, came downstairs to stand in front of his chair and said,

“What is this, Sherlock? Please tell me what’s wrong, so I can fix it. I can’t stand for us to be like this.”

And as though he’d been waiting only for that, only for me to ask him, he said in a dead, bleak voice: “You want Watson to go to school because you don’t want her to grow up like me.”

I was stricken. That really, really wasn’t it. And I didn’t even have the words to tell him why, or what it really was. I’d given us a month of absolute misery by being too gutless to ask him to simply _talk to me_. It would take a lot more to ease his hurt than bland palaver about ordinary childhoods and average children. 

I leaned over him, kissed his hair, and said,

“Oh, love. Pack your bag for the weekend. We’re going away. Just the two of us.”

I didn’t tell him where, but I knew what we needed. A change of venue, a dip into the past, where we’d finally understood each other three years earlier. Hadn’t been back since. I had a superstitious faith that it could re-set us and help us restore our understanding. It was time for the Bologna cure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quietparadox gave me precious information about starting school in the UK, and seemed to drop everything to answer my clueless questions. ❤️🙏 Whatever I've misunderstood I am eager to fix.
> 
> Hubblegleeflower beta read this fic and I am so grateful. ❤️🙏
> 
> The title and chapter titles are all from Graham Nash’s song “Teach Your Children Well.” And I’ve shamelessly pinched one of my favorite lines from Georgette Heyer: fellow Heyer fans will recognize it from _Sylvester, or, The Wicked Uncle._
> 
> And oh yes, of course: I do love feedback, in whatever form you choose to leave it. Comments are chocolate. On Tumblr I'm totallysilvergirl, btw. Again, ❤️🙏


	2. Become yourself (because the past is just a goodbye)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You said I don’t want you to bring Rosie up to be like yourself. It isn’t that, and it never was that. What I’m afraid of is Rosie growing up to be like Mary.”
> 
> “What have you seen in Watson that reminds you of her mother?”
> 
> “Nothing very specific. Just... a tendency to be secretive, sometimes. Perhaps to manipulate. To isolate.”

**April 8–12, 2019**

It took me all of ten minutes online to get us plane tickets from London Stansted (sigh) to Bologna, and another seven on the phone to reserve us a room—because it had to be _our_ room—at the same hotel on the canal. To my surprise they remembered us. (Then again, I suppose we had put on quite a show in the breakfast room that first morning.)

When Friday came I bundled Rosie into Julian’s mini-van, and Sherlock and our one case onto the Stansted Express. He never asked where we were going, probably deduced it from some obscure detail, because communication was still minimal. The emotional temperature between us hovered between frosty, apprehensive, and sad, with undertones of waiting-until-we-arrived-to-have-our-showdown-in-full. The chasm had formed between us so deep and so fast; how was it even possible to go from rock-solid to this fragile, in the space of a month? It made me fear it was already too late, that separation was a foregone conclusion.

The journey was dismal, of course. Airports are horrible, airplanes little less so, and passport control when crowded (as was perhaps inevitable for a spring Friday) is like zombie world. Not to mention a companion who was unsmiling and silent and distant.

We took a cab to the hotel, and endured the warm and cheerful welcome of the enthusiastic proprietress with the discomfort of two lovers badly out of sync.

But it felt right to be there again, to step into the tiny, slow elevator of which I had such immediate and vivid memories. Our room. Our window, with the canal flowing audibly below. The same skylight; the same coverlet, even. Coming back to this space brought our week there in 2016 back into front memory, telescoping past and present and giving me my first taste of positive hope.

And it must have had some similar effect on Sherlock, because as soon as I put our small case on the low table I found him standing at my elbow, the closest he’d come voluntarily in weeks. To my astonished relief he raised his arms and encircled me, lowered his head to my shoulder, breathed in deep and exhaled as though he’d been physically holding his breath.

When he finally spoke his question was curt, but his voice was soft. “John. Why are we here?”

I had no ability to choose my words; they seemed to choose themselves, breathed into the skin of his neck.

“Because this is where we came together. Where we told each other everything. Made love. Made promises. And if you’re going to leave me, this is where you’re going to do it. In this city. In this bed.”

Sherlock pulled back to stare at me. “Leave _you_? Are you ... insane?”

I dipped my head and huffed a laugh. Trust him to break the tension.

“I’d have to be, to let you walk away from me. Or to walk away from you, from the best thing that’s ever happened to me. From everything that makes my life make sense. I’d have to be certifiable.”

“Why on earth I be leaving _you_?” He still sounded utterly bewildered. And something was off, there, but I couldn’t quite pin down what it was.

“Well, the hints have been so subtle I could hardly say. Perhaps the silence. The icy chill. The long absences. Perhaps the _pyjamas_. Call it a hunch.”

It seemed we were out of practice talking seriously, or perhaps our hug had given us a change of tone, but within minutes of walking into this room we were already more ourselves than we had been in weeks.

He tightened his hold on me again, and I hugged him as close as I could through several layers of clothes.

“And it isn’t just us, anymore. Once I told you that Rosie had no one but me. But that hasn’t been true for years. For her whole conscious life, she’s had you. It isn’t just you and me. It’s Rosie, too.”

He pulled away and made to take off his coat. He hung it up, ruffled his hair (I still get butterflies when he does that, does he know?) and settled into the one almost comfortable chair in the small room, leaving me the bed. Git.

His voice, if not warm, had nonetheless thawed a great deal over what had become normal of late. “Yes, and that’s where that’s this all started, so let’s start there.”

I wished we had something to drink. Oh, well, if this first conversation went well we could always have an aperitivo before dinner.

“I brought you here because you said I wanted Rosie in school so she wouldn’t grow up like you. Or something like that. And it showed me that we were so far from understanding each other that we needed a seriously focused talk. No distractions.”

Sherlock remembered verbatim, of course. “I _said_ , you don’t want me to bring Watson up to be like me.”

Christ, how could hearing that hurt even more the second time? And again in that desolate tone that had broken my heart Monday night.

“What does that even mean, ‘bring her up to be like you?’ Tall, dark, brilliant, and sexy as all hell?”

Sherlock didn’t take the humour bait, saying instead, “Solitary. Hyper-intellectual. Obsessive. Socially awkward.”

I sighed. At least he hadn’t defaulted back to _high-functioning sociopath_. Sherlock still harboured a well of self-loathing, usually concealed but never depleted.

“Sherlock. I love you. If I could clone you, I would. If we could have a baby Sherlock who would grow up exactly like you, I’d be—well, I’m already the luckiest man in creation, but I would be _even luckier_. Not only would any child be blessed to grow up like you, but the only way I could love you more is if there were another one of you to love. —Is this making _any_ sense at all?”

He smiled, that small secret smile that means I’ve made a dent.

“Not much sense, no. But it’s a nice thought, that you weren’t afraid I was turning Watson into a mini-me.”

A bark of startled laughter burst out. “Sherlock! Have you met her?! You couldn’t make that child solitary if you spent ten years trying! Obsessive? Yeah, she seems very disciplined about the things you’ve been teaching her. Either she’s terribly bright or she’s learning to be so in specific areas, _from you_ —”

Sherlock cut me off: “ _For you_.”

“What?” I was thrown.

“For you. A surprise for your birthday. Two songs: one on the piano, with me; and one she’s going to sing for you. A simple Bach minuet, and a children’s song in French.”

It took a moment to actually decipher what he was saying, what all those sounds he was making added up to.

Well. That was embarrassing. It seemed I’d spun an innocent birthday project into a fantasy of reclusive study and some kind of sinister conspiracy between Sherlock and Rosie.

“It’s hardly overkill, John. She’s not been placed in a Soviet-era talent-farm and made to practise fourteen hours a day.”

I said the quiet part out loud. “Well, this is embarrassing.”

“You might say that.” His voice was dry.

“It’s to be my present.” He hates repetition, but needs must.

“Yes. Because you don’t tend to like physical gifts. Or at least, you wouldn’t like the ones Watson had thought up.” His eyes actually crinkled as he remembered.

“Such as?” And just like that we were parents again together, best friends together, lovers together.

“Dinosaur socks in teal and yellow.” His lips were pressed tight, his eyes bright in the effort not to laugh.

“Bless you for sparing me the dinosaur socks.”

“They would have been dignified compared to the golf trousers. Watson loved the four different-coloured panels.”

“Dear God. Please, _please_ , feel free to bring up our child with your taste in menswear.”

“And only with difficulty was she pulled away from the child-sized rucksack in the shape of a butterfly covered with peacock-coloured sequins. You’re just lucky they don’t _make_ them in adult sizes or there’d have been no stopping her.”

By now I was laughing so hard my face were wet with tears. They were also tears of relief, but I could so clearly see Rosie trying to convince Sherlock that I would love a sequined rucksack.

I got up to pull him over to the bed. I had to be touching him when I said this next bit. Got him to stretch out, propped against the headboard, so I could huddle in and finally, after all this time, put my arm around his waist.

“You said I don’t want you to bring Rosie up to be like yourself. It isn’t that, and it never was that. What I’m afraid of is Rosie growing up to be like Mary.”

Sherlock’s whole frame seized as though jolted with electricity. “What the _hell_ do you mean? What have you seen in Watson that reminds you of her mother?”

“Nothing very specific. Just... a tendency to be secretive, sometimes. Perhaps to manipulate. To isolate.”

As soon as the words left my mouth I heard how stupid they sounded. If she and Sherlock had been plotting a birthday surprise, how else would a small child react but with theatrical secrecy and isolation? Had I been imagining some ridiculous “bad seed” scenario?

I looked at Sherlock, at that delicious wrinkle between his brows. Kind enough not to mock, and to treat my worry seriously.

“I don’t know many small children, John. But I’ve never seen Watson lie, or be markedly manipulative. I probably shouldn’t have encouraged her to keep a secret from you. Even an innocuous birthday secret might be a bad precedent. But the calculated performance that was Mary’s whole life—there’s been no sign of anything like that, I promise you.”

And he bent down at an awkward angle and kissed my temple. It was his first deliberate kiss since before we went to the Rosedale School, and it melted me to the core.

At seven p.m. it was still full light out, and the cheerful sounds of city life filtering up from the street blended with the rushing water of the canal. We had time, all the time we wanted, and I was far less hungry for dinner than I was for Sherlock. 

We’d been away from Rosie a few times, but—now I thought of it—mostly on cases, which were hardly our most relaxed or emotional moments. Here we had almost forty hours to be alone together, and as I ran my hand down Sherlock’s shirt and trousers, I discovered I wasn’t the only one inspired by that fact.

It was disorienting to think that I’d come here less than an hour ago thinking we might actually separate. We still had plenty to talk over, but it no longer felt as though we were fragile. Precarious.

* * * * *

The first night we came here—and being here again made it seem just days ago—I was so wound up with hope and tension and lust that I thought I would come just from Sherlock’s hand grazing my skin. Everything he did, and the thought of anything he might do, intensified my trembling desire: I didn’t last long that first time, and neither did he, we were so very past due for lovemaking.

In the three years since, we’d become adept at compressing physical pleasure into a child’s hour-long naptime—or stretching it out into a night-long session of play, thrusting and straining, pausing to regroup, whispering and touching and laughing, resting and starting again. We sometimes got up from a night together not having slept but an hour or two. We hadn’t got jaded or sated; if anything the fascination had deepened.

But being here again: it was indescribably arousing, it was overlaying two disparate moments into stirring simultaneity. The body I had finally, finally touched in love for the first time and the body I had since made love to a thousand times—they were one and the same. The eyes that never seemed to blink while I looked down into them, or up into them: intimately known, always new.

And _his_ desire. It sparked my own in ways I had never anticipated before we were together, when all I knew was my own longing for him. Now I felt him rock-hard under my seeking hand, and before I knew it I’d straddled his thighs and started opening those hard-working shirt buttons, exposing the ivory skin of his chest with its sparse hair, and the neat, taut nipples, and the cruel mark of a bullet.

I was pulling his shirt out from his pants, leaning down to kiss my way down his throat, licking into the hollow and along those glorious collarbones. He was opening my belt and trousers, pulling out my cock, _Christ_ what a relief, I’d got desperate for his hand on my erection. I bent down to put my mouth to one nipple and caress the other, felt him buck upwards in response.

Too many clothes. I pulled back and stripped off my shirt, heard his laboured breathing stop a moment (I’d never quite understand his reaction to my scar, but so be it). Swung a leg off to get rid of my own trousers completely, pants and all, and then to tug his down and off. He’d gone completely silent but in the absolutely good way, the silence not of cold distance but of rapt surrender to a wave of sensation. I knew him now, what he was feeling was as clear to me as my own experience. It was the same sensory feedback loop that had made lovemaking matchless from that first time, in this very bed.

I took his cock in my hand and thumbed over the tip, felt it slide wet into my palm and out again as he thrust and groaned. Before he could do it again I had my tongue wrapping and licking around that tender frenulum so that he bucked again and gasped “John— _wait_ _!_ —I won’t—”

No hurry, here. I pulled back and hollowed my tongue around his shaft, moving up and down slowly until he began to push for more. Caressed his bollocks with tongue and fingers, gently knuckling his perineum, trying to keep him at the edge for as long as I could control my own reactions. Nothing doing: he curled himself away from me and before I could properly protest, reversed direction on the bed so that we could do the same thing to each other.

God, oh, _God,_ Sherlock’s a _genius_ , how do I keep forgetting, he always knows the right thing to do to keep us both at the same fever pitch, at the same pace. My focus blurred at the sensation of the hot wet of his mouth around my bollocks, his firm hand around my shaft. I don’t know how long, it might have been seconds or minutes before I came with a sob of gratitude echoed by the sounds I heard from Sherlock.

My head pillowed on his thigh, my hands wandering, I felt my cheeks wet and my heart pounding as we came down from what felt like, again, the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you have a favorite fanvid? Are you in the mood to feed the beast? Feel warmly invited to make a rec in the comments if you're so inclined: title, maker, and URL would be helpful. Johnlock, or Sherlock, or any other topic or pairing. As always, no pressure: if and when you feel like it.
> 
> Mydogwatson recommended this _virtuosic_ Sherlock fanvid of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," made by Spellbound in collaboration with Alchemy. It's flat-out exhilarating.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd68685UzeY&t=29s
> 
> My own rec is one I watch often: a Johnlock fanvid of Sara Bareilles' "Breathe Again," made by ejnjobe. Apparently I like to have my heart shattered on a regular basis--who knew? Every choice is a knockout.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgG68_b9ixI


	3. Their fathers' hell did slowly go by

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in our room we showered separately; I’d forgotten how tiny a one-square-metre shower is, and banged my elbows on it repeatedly. While he was showering I opened our case and saw those damned pyjamas. He’d brought the fucking things with us. On impulse I chucked them out of the window, and assumed they’d fall into the canal.

**12–14 April 2019**

Words were unnecessary: our unspoken communication was restored, at least for the time being. There was more to be said, but for now we both knew we were thinking primarily of dinner. Sticky as we were, we could shower later.

The small, unpretentious, but top-flight trattoria just across the street was open, and we settled in for a plate of pasta and a side dish of field greens sauteed in garlic and hot pepper. _Why_ had we waited so long to come back to Bologna?

Sherlock swallowed a mouthful of red wine, then looked at me straight and said, “I need to ask you something.”

Oh, dear. So far I’d not covered myself in glory in this episode, and I was about to make a fool of myself again, I could feel it. But we were on terms again, no need to pretend to be utterly confident in my choices.

“What is it, love?”

“This business of Watson’s schooling. You always say she’s our daughter, we’re her fathers. No?”

“One hundred percent yes. I mean, we’re not married and you’ve not adopted her, but in every way that counts, she’s our daughter.”

He looked pensive, swirled the wine in its deep-bellied glass, then sipped again. 

“If Watson is also my daughter, why was this decision yours alone to make?”

Well. Well, right. Why _had_ I thought it was my prerogative to decide? Somehow this was far more delicate a topic, far more gross an oversight, than Sherlock’s equable tone made it sound.

I had nothing. “Ouch. Fair point. I ... thought I had incorporated you completely into my mental model of fathers and daughter, but it seems I was wrong. I’ve been behaving as if Rosie was my prerogative and my privilege. I’m—sorry, love. Sorrier than I can say.”

Sherlock told me once he’s learned not to press his point when he’s mostly carried it. In a fashion I’d almost call chivalrous, he didn’t rub my nose in my admission just then. But of course he did ask what he would call a clarifying question.

“So in major decisions about her well-being, we both have to be comfortable with the outcome, correct?”

My head was sinking into my hands. “Ideally, yes, of course.”

“And if we aren’t, we need to find a compromise.”

“Yes.” I heard my own voice, cartoonishly miserable.

Calmly and inexorably Sherlock continued, “Well, but I wasn’t. You knew I wasn’t, and you still committed to putting her in school in the fall.”

Oh God, this was wretched. I was getting myself in deeper with every exchange. What _had_ I been thinking?

I put up a feeble defence. “But you wouldn’t talk to me, tell me why. You just ... shut me out. We made a promise that we’d never do that to each other again. There was a time-sensitive decision to be made, so I made it.” 

Sherlock looked on patiently, waiting for me to hear that what I’d just given him was a bullshit reason. More a rationalisation than a rationale.

“Okay, you’re right. I should have been talking with you about it from the beginning. And knowing you objected, I should have put any decision on hold until we’d found a compromise. You know I’ve always had complete confidence in your parenting.”

“Yes, you have. So why did you stop? Why did you decide to shut _me_ out by making enquiries and plans and decisions without even consulting me?”

Sherlock was an expert cross-examiner. He really should have taken to the law. I fell back and acknowledged, “It’s a fair question. But before I answer, I have to point out that you didn’t consult me before teaching her bloody _French_.”

His mouth twisted as he said, “I didn’t think you’d want me teaching her Italian.”

Well, that hurt. Seriously. There was quite a lot he could have said without invoking his month with sodding Zanardi. He could have mentioned the French side of his family, if nothing else. But no. Just “you wouldn’t want to be reminded of my Italian lover.”

It hurt so badly I had no words but “Christ, Sherlock.”

To his credit, he was contrite: “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up the ... past. French because Sami is also fluent in it; the piano because it’s a good base for other instruments. I’ve been teaching Watson music and a language because those skills literally grow the brain. Because children her age are sponges for both. Because they’re an immense advantage cognitively, socially, and emotionally. All reasons I’ve told you at least ten times.”

I’d think later about whether I really had been that absent (or absent-minded) a father; our point of real contention was a different one.

“And _I’m_ not sure that having Rosie fluent in a foreign language, reading English at a third-year level, playing a musical instrument, and talking like the _Times Literary Supplement_ at age four is going to help her adapt to children of less advanced capabilities. Is that—wrong on my part?”

It was an honest question. I wasn’t sure whether I was being prudent here, or craven—whether I was letting practicality sway me, or fear. But I still felt it, very strongly. 

Sherlock was quiet for a moment. He was choosing his words carefully, because he wouldn’t look at me. When he did look up, he just said,

“Well, we’ll see in the autumn, won’t we.”

It wasn’t quite the harmonious tone we’d reached before, but we weren’t here to paper over our disagreement. We were here to hammer it out, and at least the lines of communication were still open.

* * * * *

Back in our room we showered separately; I’d forgotten how tiny a one-square-metre shower is, and banged my elbows on it repeatedly. While he was showering I opened our case and saw those damned pyjamas. He’d brought the fucking things with us. On impulse I chucked them out of the window, and assumed they’d fall into the canal.

He came out wrapped in a towel and glanced into the case. Looked over at me quizzically. I tilted my chin toward the window and he snorted, then started to laugh. A deep belly-laugh that got louder and more vigorous as he visualised me doing something so uncharacteristic.

“You really hated them that much?”

“I did. I do. I hate anything that gets between my skin and yours. Don’t bother replacing them, I’ll just do the same again.”

At this he came to the bed and got in, stretched around me so that we were touching everywhere we could, breathing me in as I was him. 

“God, I’ve missed you. Please. Let’s never.” I couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“Never.”

No need to be shamefaced at wanting him again: he was in the same state, clearly, and the skin hunger we’d built over weeks of distance would take a _lot_ of assuaging. He straddled me, lining us up so that his bollocks rolled lushly over mine, his cock dragging gently over mine, his hands grasping my hips and then pressing up my sides to my shoulders, neck, face. It was subtle but intoxicating. I didn’t even notice when he turned out the light.

I interrupted a long and luscious kiss to gasp out, “Lube?”

“Most certainly not.”

“Damn. You brought pyjamas but no lube.” I was trying to keep my breathing even, but it was a challenge.

“That was the point. What’s your excuse?” I could hear the smile, but he too was having to master his breathing.

“The pyjamas. You might as well’ve been wearing a sign that says ‘private property, no admittance.’” I gasped as he pressed just so, angling us so that I nearly came there and then.

“We’ll fix it in the morning. For now we’ll make do with what’s to hand.” What was to hand was a really enthusiastic quantity of pre-ejaculate which he spread over frenulum and shaft, and that was it, just that much slick and I was gone, and so was he.

The elation of it, the _relief_ of it, hit us again as it had our first time in this bed and I swear we were asleep before we had time to think about a wet flannel.

* * * * *

The next morning, the familiar breakfast room again intensified the impression of temporal overlay I'd had the evening before. Once again Sherlock spurned the vast majority of the breakfast offerings, accepting only a cappuccino and one slice of some kind of cake, while I piled my tiny plate with everything that looked nutritious and enticing—and then filled another.

He raised his brows but didn’t comment. “We have a whole day in Bologna: where do you want to go?”

“Go? You mean _out_? Why?”

He pinked up and smiled, but said with exaggerated patience, “We need a pharmacy. Obviously.”

“So we may as well score some cultural gratification while we’re at it, is that it?”

“Well, there’s also lunch. Don’t try to convince me you’re indifferent to lunch.”

“And dinner. And ice cream. And roasted chestnuts.”

“I suspect roasted chestnut season is over, John. We don’t need to replicate everything about our first time here, you know.”

That was sobering. Dear God, I hoped never to hear any more about Roberto Zanardi ever again, let alone the massive amounts of information I’d asked for and been given back then.

“Of course, you’re right. Let’s walk around the market, then, then see what we feel like. We might find something fun for Rosie.”

Sherlock was much the better shopper, seemed to spot quirky prizes in heaps of utter rubbish. I was hoping the huge market would strike him as a challenge.

“Oh, a sequined rucksack? We already know she craves one.”

“Over my dead body.”

We quickly exhausted the charm of the stalls in the main piazza, and instead spent the morning poring over the used and vintage section of the market set up along and in the park across the road. Sherlock found something that he negotiated and acquired so surreptitiously that it was clearly a birthday present. I found something for him, too: an antique surgical implement in a heap of old farm tools. The seller spoke mangled but confident English, and I felt quite chuffed at paying junk rates for my find when it actually had considerable value—not monetary but sentimental. This would be Sherlock's souvenir of this visit: a trepanning tool, very romantic.

We had lunch in a trattoria in the Mercato delle Erbe, Sherlock spurning the upscale pretensions of its opposite number behind the Basilica. What Italians do with pasta is genuinely an art form. Perhaps a cooking course here someday?

We did, of course, find the needful in the _farmacia_ and returned to the hotel for a reminiscent and restorative, if not restful, afternoon. There were matters still to discuss and to settle, but first things first: repairing the rift in our symbiosis. 

* * * * *

We went for dinner to the same _trattoria_ across the way, Sherlock having looked into the one round the corner and found it unacceptably twee, its menu geared for tourists. The proprietor seated us in the corner again, which was good, because I had two questions and absolutely no desire for anyone to overhear our discussion.

This time I waited until we’d finished eating (lamb for me, but Sherlock had no reservations about eating pasta twice in one day). I started with the larger question, or at least the older one.

“Tell me, love. When we went to the school’s Open Day—what got you so very angry, that evening? When I came back down from putting Rosie to sleep you literally weren’t speaking to me anymore.”

Sherlock had been looking so pleased and relaxed, but as I spoke that leeched away.

“Your phone pinged, and it kept pinging. I looked at the message, couldn’t figure out what it was about, who it was. I read the whole series.”

Ah. Aha. Fuck. That bizarrely intrusive woman from the school. It was quite a long text message string: thank heaven I’d kept it. I frowned, and Sherlock misunderstood the reason for it.

“We've never not shared phones, it didn't occur to me not to look at your messages.”

“Of course it didn't. You can always look at my phone. So what did you see?” I couldn’t remember how far the interchange had got when I went up to put Rosie to bed.

By now Sherlock looked sick. Clearly he’d been repressing this the whole time we’d been here.

“I saw that you were in the beginning stages of a text flirtation with a woman who looked like your favourite actress, and that you were thinking of putting our daughter into her care. You were making a momentous decision for contemptible reasons. I was more hurt and disappointed than I can even say.”

I could only imagine. There had been a time or two when Sherlock had got the wind up about some very attractive woman or other, but he’d never seen me respond, until that evening. It was coming back to me now. But I had receipts: I was going to be able to reassure him quite comprehensively.

Without a word I pulled out my phone, found the message string from over a month ago, and scrolled back to the beginning. Handed it to him.

“I’m thinking you read only the part that could be seen as flirtatious, though only if you squint. This time, read the whole thing.”

I watched the emotions play over his face at the same lightning speed as his reading. He finished and looked up.

“Feeling a bit stupid here, now. And a bit guilty. You certainly didn’t encourage her. I’m ... sorry.”

“Next time just ask, yeah? Not only does no one get my attention now I have you, love—but no flirtation would ever outweigh Rosie’s best interests.”

I didn’t need to ask my second question, now. The way Sherlock had said not “ _leave_ you?” the previous night, but “leave _you_?” Not once but twice: it was clear now, why. He’d imagined a scenario where—no, best get it out in the open.

I put my hand on his and said, quietly, “Have you been thinking I’ve been seeing this woman? That I would be leaving _you_? Is that why you’ve hardly been home? Why you've been working cases without me?”

He didn’t look up. “I didn’t want to hear you lie to me. About where you’d been, and with whom. Yes. I’ve been thinking the worst. I’m sorry not to have trusted you even enough to ask you about this.”

I fought down a spurt of righteous indignation. Because I’d been jealous myself, and the feeling is its own punishment. I remembered the time Sherlock had voluntarily shown me a text string, with Zanardi. I could have done the same with this one, even without knowing he’d seen part of it. But I hadn't, because I’d sensed he’d use it to discredit not only the school but the whole _idea_ of school.

It was too solemn a moment for levity, and too heavy to leave unresolved. The proprietor brought us each a _digestivo_ , and I tapped my clunky little glass against his, saying,

“You proposed to me once, and I said yes. I proposed to you, and you said yes, but here we are, still not married. Care to remedy that? How about a December wedding?”

At that he did look up, and I could see the speculations—he’d say deductions—ticking over. _Winter wedding, the opposite of Mary’s. December colors, not yellow and lilac. Small, indoors, discreet. Probably no attempted murders._

If he made a joke, it was a maybe. Pending any fallout from starting school in the fall.

He nodded, deadpan. “I know a promising flower girl, if you want one.”

“Nah, I thought she could do the music.”

The next afternoon we were back at the airport, and by evening picking up our sleepy child from Sarah and Julian, and our life was starting again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the lovely comments and the recs--feel free to keep those coming, on any and all chapters. Fics, podfics, vids, art, meta, edits, all the fanwork and fan play: the staff of life. 💋


	4. Teach your parents well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day we took her to school Rosie was excited and giggling, holding each of us by the hand and demanding we swing her up every few feet. She’s always been a compact little girl, and _oh great, now I could worry about that as well_ : she’s little for her age _and_ advanced for her age, and why had I ever thought it was a good idea to send her to school at four-and-a-half?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A painting by Bluebellofbakerstreet was the inspiration for the fathers taking Rosie to school. I wasn't aware it had been, until I saw the image again and realized I'd unconsciously drawn on it. Thanks to Bluebell for their kind permission to link! https://archiveofourown.org/works/24064798

**14 April–16 December 2019**

We came back from Italy relieved and reconciled, but not in agreement. Well, that we’d both made stupid and futile mistakes, and then compounded them by not talking—on that we were in perfect agreement. Anyone would think we’d have learned permanently over the course of nine turbulent years to _use our words_ ; but when it comes to this kind of self-sabotage, apparently I’m not the only slow learner in 221B.

Rosie and Sherlock gave me a lovely birthday celebration, with the full Team Rosie there to share tea and cake and hear Rosie and Sherlock’s Bach minuet, and Rosie’s adorable (this is an objective fact) rendition of “Au clair de la lune.” Sherlock had printed me out a sheet with the words in French and English, but I couldn’t read them for tears. I was turning forty-six, but the day seemed a milestone more for Rosie than for me.

But on the topic of her school, no: Sherlock and I still weren’t in agreement. He understood my rationale but didn’t share it. He did indeed think most people were idiots, and that if Rosie had to learn this unhappy truth it should be later rather than sooner. Though he also admitted it hadn’t made him significantly happier to know (“know”) it, and he did want her to be happy.

Essentially we were in a state of truce. Whatever his quirks, Sherlock isn’t passive-aggressive; having ceded on Rosie starting school he went all in, or all out, getting her ready for it. Nothing excessive or showy, just school supplies that started showing up. Notebooks, pencils, and a raft of mysterious but cheerful little objects that Sherlock assured me were equally necessary. A little rucksack (yes butterfly, no sequinned). School outfits, sensible and versatile and pretty. I’ve never understood how he does this Ba thing so well, and when asked, he just rolls his eyes as if to say "much ado about nothing."

He’s always been a very practical parent—no saccharine photo ops, no trendy-spendy nonsense—so Rosie was surprised and just a little suspicious at all the new acquisitions. But when we explained that she’d be going to school in the autumn, she fell in with the whole thing with typical Rosie enthusiasm.

* * * * *

In early September her first day at school was upon us. I was a total mess: what had I been thinking, for God’s sake? If her birthday presents could bring me to tears, how had I thought I was going to cope with _this_?

Sherlock, to his eternal credit, refrained from taunting me or even acknowledging that I was being massively inconsistent. Honestly, sometimes I think the man I met all those years ago has been replaced by a wish fulfillment fantasy. But then, he’s always been my wish fulfillment fantasy.

The first day we took Rosie to school she was excited and giggling, holding each of us by the hand and demanding we swing her up every few feet. She’s always been a compact little girl, and _oh great, now I could worry about that as well_ : she’s little for her age _and_ advanced for her age, and why had I ever thought it was a good idea to send her to school at four-and-a-half?

She went into Rosedale with Sherlock, since I had no wish for her to see me weepy. I also had no wish to see Stalker-teacher; I knew Sherlock had got Rosie into the class of the “quite impressive” teacher he’d met at the Open Day. He whisked me home after, demanding that we make best use of our suddenly free morning, reminding me of what we’d done with the rest of our similarly unencumbered hours in Bologna back in April. I swear he was deliberately distracting me, and as always, he was spectacular at that.

The first week wasn’t hard at all—on Rosie, at least. I learned that she makes friends easily. That her temperament is sunny and confident, sensitive to other kids but not hypersensitive about herself. Her classmates were a varied bunch and many of them were precocious. Several were bilingual, two were trilingual; one was a polymath; one was definitely autistic, two others on the spectrum; two were incredibly gifted at music, three at arts. And most kids occupied two or more of these categories.

I felt like an idiot. Sherlock reassured me that I was, in fact, an idiot. This generous confirmation I took at its proper value. I’d been afraid Rosie would be the only kid to excel in several areas; instead, with the exception of her advanced reading and vocabulary, she didn’t even stand out.

221B took on a school-centered routine; Sherlock took on more cases, and I at least saw more of Sami, who by now spoke almost exclusively French with Rosie. He was a gentle young man, studying speech therapy as a profession and well up on related fields like linguistics, anatomy, and psychology. Sherlock trusted him, and so did Rosie, so I did too.

In the third week of school Rosie got stung by a wasp, had a serious allergic reaction. I was in surgery and only found Sherlock’s text when I was getting changed:

_— Not to panic, but Watson is allergic to insect venom. She’s been treated and is responding well. Meet us at University College London Hospital A &E. 235 Euston Road. SH _

Naturally I didn’t panic at all. My heart was pounding and adrenaline was burning me up from the inside, but panic? _God_ no. On the contrary, I had the presence of mind to shout at the cabbie, which was very practical and productive, I’m sure.

When I got there I learned that Rosie had had quite a serious reaction, and she was so little they’d decided to keep her overnight for observation. Which was ... fine, as long as Sherlock and I could stay with her. This they were in no way inclined to allow, however, until the British Government intervened. Literally, turned up in person.

“How’s the little general?” Ah, that unmistakably urbane voice, bordering on smug, behind me.

It was proof of my anxiety that I was actually relieved to turn and see him.

“Responding well. She’s so little, though, and the reaction so dramatic. She’ll be kept overnight. They don’t want to let us stay with her, Mycroft.”

Another thing I learned: Mycroft’s eyebrows can soar even higher than Sherlock’s.

“We’ll see about that. Where is she?”

We led him back to her room, where we found Sherlock holding her hand and Rosie looking pale, sweaty, and cross. Normal after treatment for anaphylaxis, but my heart clenched.

“Da. Uncle My. I don’t like it here. It smells bad. The sheets hurt.”

Mycroft reached out to touch the offending bedclothes, nodded sombrely. “They are indeed a bit scratchy, General. Hardly suitable for one of your seniority.”

Rosie giggled reluctantly. Mycroft’s running joke had a disgusting success rate with her, at least it disgusted me and Sherlock. She loved his hyperbolic deference to her importance.

I learned that sometimes Mycroft can shine. He took it on himself to normalise the situation for her, de-escalating whatever distress she was feeling, making it all seem merely tiresome, not terrifying. This, her terrified parents hadn't been able to do convincingly. Within fifteen minutes he had her reconciled to her scratchy sheets, and not long after, Anthea appeared with a little nightdress, pale rose and soft as silk.

“Time for me to be off, General. Your fathers will be with you tonight. Don’t let them talk and giggle all night, they need their sleep.”

Rosie giggled again, sounding more tired. I glanced at Sherlock, to see him looking wry, maybe even nostalgic.

“You’ll have a good breakfast in the morning, after you’ve slept. No hospital food for commanding officers,” Mycroft said solemnly.

“Ah. Is that why she’s getting the five-star treatment.”

“Of course, John. Senior officers always get taken care of in accordance with their rank.”

Mycroft bent and kissed Rosie’s forehead, nodded to us and left.

I looked at Sherlock, who looked exhausted.

“Shouldn’t you go home? One of us should.”

He shook his head decisively. “No point to that, we’d only worry.”

Right. “You take the armchair, then, I’ll budge up with Rosie.” Neither was going to be comfortable; Rosie tended to battle dinosaurs in her sleep, and the chair was upholstered in a stiff fake leather.

“Ba.” Her voice was thready, barely awake. “Can I go back to school tomorrow?”

Sherlock glanced at me, smiled. “Do you like school, Watson?”

“I do. I like it.”

“Then we’ll see how you feel in the morning, between the sting and the medicine. If Doctor Watson here says you can go to school, then you shall.”

She might not even have heard him; certainly she didn’t answer. She was already asleep, her hand still in Sherlock’s.

Another thing I learned: Sherlock is in fact above taking advantage of my anxiety and guilt. He really is kind, that way.

I said, “Maybe she _is_ too little for school. Maybe I was wrong to send her—and now she’s in hospital.”

He wasn’t having it, though, refused to connect her allergic reaction to going to school. “This could have happened in the park, John—we take her nearly every day.”

I was remorseful that I’d hesitated to tell him about creepy stalker-teacher because I thought he’d use it as evidence that we shouldn’t send Rosie to school.

Rosie was the one in school, but I was the one who kept learning.

* * * * *

The weeks dragged on into October, and I decided to bring up the subject of marriage again. Somehow it seemed more pressing than it had before I had pretty comprehensively failed at incorporating Sherlock into a major, and fraught, decision about Rosie’s life.

“Failed to incorporate.” If I was being honest I’d have to say I actively excluded him, and it was time I got used to being honest without needing Ella to nudge or punch me into it.

I’d spent a few uncomfortable sessions in her office parsing the impulses and mechanisms that had made me want to take back unilateral authority over Rosie’s care. Nothing I’d told Sherlock in Bologna had been untrue, but I hadn’t seen the big picture myself there and then. It wasn’t true, as Sherlock had thought, that I was worried she was growing up to be too like him. It was true that I’d been worried that Rosie would be out of step with her cohort. And I had been worried that I saw Mary coming out in her, yes, that was true as well, and Ella and I talked about that.

Ella never tells me things directly anymore; she’s more a Socratic therapist, asking me questions that will lead me to tell her things. She went off on what I thought was a wild digression, asking about my parents, Harry, and me; Sherlock’s parents, him, and Mycroft; resemblances, differences, oppositions. It took her nearly an hour of “digression” to maneuver me into informing her that children are not miniatures of their parents. That children are not the direct reflection either of their nature, or of their nurture. Sherlock is not, Mycroft is not; Harry is not, I am not; and Rosie would not be. Ella looked much struck by this information.

She is a _very_ good therapist. She helps me see things I wasn’t seeing, or was refusing to see, and lets me reach them in my own time, when I’m ready to.

I’d been aware of many of the pieces in the puzzle of our troubled spring. But what I hadn’t seen, at least consciously, is that I feared losing control of Rosie’s upbringing. This, despite the fact that having sole responsibility for her wellbeing that first year had been so draining, and sharing it with Sherlock had been so rewarding, actually liberating. It seemed I’d wanted the benefits of co-parenting and the autonomy of single parenting—and I hadn’t even recognised it.

And to think I’d spent years feeling superior to Sherlock in the area of emotional intelligence.

* * * * *

One Sunday morning in mid-October I woke up in a familiar position: lying on my right side facing him, his right leg slung around my waist and holding me close. And for some reason that was all the spur I needed.

“Hey. Hey. Wake up.” 

He wasn’t deeply asleep, at all, just swimming lazily to the surface of consciousness.

“Yes, Captain.” Hardly fair, given how imperious his orders always are.

“I want you to make an honest man of me. I want a wedding. A December wedding. Are you in? Or do I have to drag you in?”

His sleepy sea-green eyes widened and so did his sleepy grin. “Yes, Captain,” he said again, and pulled himself over me as he pressed me down on my back. He laced our fingers together and bent down to kiss me with an intensity I recognised: sometimes Sherlock’s kisses were an end in themselves, not a prologue, going on for minutes without any end in view. His lips nipping tenderly, his tongue wandering hot and curious, our breath shared, our wordless vocalisations deepening. Oh, I could kiss Sherlock for hours.

For the record, everyone who’s ever said that everybody tastes bad in the morning is an idiot and has self-evidently never kissed Sherlock first thing. Which is good, because I have enough residual resentment of the man who _had_ kissed Sherlock first thing, and I don’t need anyone else to resent.

In the mornings our time is always uncertain and limited, though, so soon enough he began to rub gently against me, rolling his hips until I could barely breathe and had to flail at the night table for some lube. He did that thing I love where he takes both of us in one hand and with incredible precision brings us both to climax at nearly the same time. I never could have imagined the way a man whose brain never turns off, could direct all that concentration and observation to making love—and to making the familiar patterns of lovemaking even more breathtaking than the elation of novelty. It only got better with time.

* * * * *

We told Rosie that we were going to have a wedding in December, and she was excited, mostly I think because she'd got it mixed up in her mind with Christmas. At least, the drawings she made of our prospective wedding contained a suspicious number of elves and reindeer for two middle-aged human males finally tying the knot.

I’d never imagined how many people want to marry in December, and nearly had to call in the heavy artillery of the elder Holmes brother to secure our slot in the local registry office. Happily, the fame of the younger Holmes brother induced the clerk to add an extra slot at the end of their working day, which was more than kind.

Sherlock had organised one over-the-top wedding already, and it wasn’t a happy memory. We began our planning with the exclusions: no formal wedding wear, no wedding attendants, and emphatically no professional photographer. No music, no flowers, no customised vows. Literally nothing of the expensive and uncomfortable wedding paraphernalia of 2014. Just a private ceremony and a party Rosie could enjoy and even remember one day, when we were both gone. She’d been present at the marriage of her father and mother, after all; now she could be conscious at the marriage of her two fathers.

We decided to invite no more than fifteen guests, and to bring them back to 221B for a buffet of lavish starters that might stand in for dinner. Champagne, of course, and a small cake, but more like Christmas fare than a wedding cake.

And so it happened. Our bits of sentiment were covert: I asked Sherlock to wear an aubergine shirt; he asked me to cut my hair the way I wore it when we met. We gave each other back our rings, so as to exchange them again at the registry office. I had the date of our wedding added next to the existing inscription, which was the date we met; I was curious to see what he would add to mine.

On Monday December 16th at 6 p.m. we all turned up at the registry office. Mrs Hudson, in charge of Rosie. Mummy and Daddy Holmes, and inevitably Mycroft. Harry and Clara (“Of course I’m coming, Johnny. For the same reason I skipped the last one”). Greg Lestrade. Molly Hooper. Mike Stamford, our _sine qua non_ (“Oh I’ll be there, mate, whenever I miss your wedding you do it _wrong_ , not taking any chances this time”). Sarah and Julian, _sans_ twins (“God no, John. We need a few hours _off_ , for God’s sake”). Sami, who by now was part of Rosie’s heart. Bill Murray, the last of my army acquaintances I really thought of as a friend. Rich Carson, the retired genius surgeon who'd supervised my retraining for surgery.

I’d invited Ella, but she had professional boundaries I respected. (“It’s either come to your wedding or continue as your therapist, John. Which do you prefer?”) I vetoed Bill Wiggins before Sherlock could even bring him up; and I couldn't imagine inviting James Sholto to a second Watson wedding that—well, the first had hardly gone well for him, had it, and that was reason enough to spare him the second.

It felt better than right, standing up in front of our friends and family with Sherlock in his proper role. We were both relaxed: being both of us fairly private, having removed most of the stressors we could predict served us well.

Each of us teared up just once.

Me, when I checked the inside of my ring to see what Sherlock had had the jeweler add: “The greatest of these is love,” in tiny flowing letters. Oh, I almost lost it there, huffing out a sob I turned into a laugh, and smiling at him so hard it hurt.

And Sherlock, when we went to leave the registry office and found a small crowd lining the steps outside in the dark and _cheering_ for us: Met officers on one side, members of his homeless network on the other. He whirled back round to face the inside and compose himself. Then he turned back to walk down the steps with me, smiling and wincing a bit at the paper confetti being thrown at us. Just behind us was Mycroft carrying Rosie, quite unnecessarily. They were followed by her train of admirers, like some suite of attendants for a young royal—he would say “general.”

Sherlock and I had spent so long holding onto our fears, about ourselves and each other. And here we were, surrounded by proof—and I know what proof means to Sherlock—that he was no solitary freak and I no junior acolyte. Yet another thing we’d learned from Rosie: to get beyond the detritus of things past, and get on with being happy. Starting, in this case, with a wedding, and the holidays, and his birthday, and—sometime in the winter—a honeymoon.

I had a craving to see the most beautiful man in the world in what’s said to be the most beautiful city in the world: if Sherlock liked the idea, we could go to Venice. Or he might prefer someplace else. It's all fine.

But first home, and a raucous celebration in Baker Street. I was glad we had Rosie, and a weeknight, to justify an early end to the gathering: it was our wedding night, and I intended to make it memorable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next episode in this series will be the wedding as Sherlock remembers it, and the honeymoon as he experiences it. (*fans self*) If you’re on board for this, you might subscribe to the series or to me.
> 
> It’ll probably be for summer, though, as I got possessed by a new fic:  
> After Sherlock jumps, John begins to dedicate songs to “my absent friend” every Sunday evening at 6 p.m. on a requests-only radio programme. Sherlock finds out, spends months obsessively parsing the songs, and finally concludes that John isn’t "just" grieving: somehow he knows Sherlock’s alive. Cautiously, Sherlock begins to reply in kind. Canon compliant only through S2. 
> 
> Thank you for reading this minor speed bump on the rocky road of love. Loda5697, I hope it was what you wanted! Your prompt was a great deal of fun for me, and I cherish your kindness in FTH 2020.


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